January 14th, 2004: At a conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Lawrence Summers proposed that innate genetic differences between the sexes may be one explanation for why fewer women succeed in math and science careers. Since that date hundreds, if not thousands, of women who have written to newspapers and to Summers directly to set him straight about the challenges that face women in still-non-traditional fields. It would be bad enough if Summers were any ordinary academic, but he is the current President of Harvard University and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank.

In a January 19th apology statement, he said, "Despite reports to the contrary, I did not say, and I do not believe, that girls are intellectually less able than boys, or that women lack the ability to succeed at the highest levels of science. I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women... As a university president, I consider nothing more important than helping to create an environment, at Harvard and beyond, in which every one of us can pursue our intellectual passions and realize our aspirations to the fullest possible extent....as academics who believe in the power of research, we should invest our energies in thinking as clearly and objectively as possible, drawing on potential insights from different disciplines, to identify and understand all the various factors that might possibly bear on the situation."

Working Papers by Lawrence Summers | NOW Statement | Feminist Daily News Story | GPAC Statement | Democracy Now Story | Association for Women in Science | San Francisco Chapter | Palo Alto Chapter | Committee on Women in Science and Engineering | Association for Women in Science and Engineering (Britain)